318 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



A Dictionary of English and Folk- Names of British Birds, dc. 

 By H. Kirke Swann. Witherby & Co. 



This is a volume compiled with considerable knowledge and 

 research, while it appeals to bookmen as well as ornithologists 

 by its bird-lore, a subject in old literature to which a good 

 reference is frequently imperative. In turning over its pages 

 we noticed that the Cornish name for the Chough and also for 

 the Hooded Crow is " Market Jew Crow," which has explained 

 the well-known name of a street in Penzance — " Market Jew 

 Street " — which had often puzzled us not a little. Some names 

 of common birds in use by the old and now happily almost 

 extinct professional birdcatchers would well bear record if they 

 could be garnered, for doubtless they are still used in the 

 quarters where these diminished gentry live, though no longer 

 nourish. In the schoolboy days of the present writer a Chaf- 

 finch was always referred to by a man with the nets as a 

 " chuck wido." 



Mr. Swann gives a good bibliography, and has consulted 

 most of the best books on the subject. In a future edition he 

 might add to his list ' Bird Gods,' by Charles de Kay, a book 

 from which something may be gleaned. Thus the Wryneck, 

 " in the vulgar speech of Germany," is stated to be known 

 as the " Cuckoo's maiden,* perhaps because the ancients 

 fancied that the bird was twisting its head round to see its 

 admired one, the Cuckoo." It is not, however, on what is 

 unmentioned in this volume that we wish to be critical, but 

 rather to gratefully acknowledge the large amount of informa- 

 tion that can be found in its pages. 



* In Suffolk it is sometimes known as the "Cuckoo-leader." 



